Everybody Deserves A First Time
by OpportuneMoment
Summary: A little late-night entertainment... Miss Parker has caught her prize, but will she give him a prize in return? (Emotional fluff piece, rated MA for content. Jarod/Miss Parker)


**Everyone Deserves A First time**

 _Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or setting of The Pretender. But, man, I do love to dream…._

 _Teaser: Miss Parker finally has Jarod right where she wants him. *Rated MATURE for explicit content*_

 _ **8.15 PM, Augustine Plaza Hotel, Room 301.**_

Jarod's smoky eyes held hers, the gun in her hand trembling as though he could control it with his gaze.

"You don't want to shoot me…" he whispered, certain.

"Of course not, idiot," she bit back, disturbed that her resolve was wavering, "I want you alive."

"You want me… alive?" The pause left her in no doubt of his train of thought.

"Shut your mouth Jarod. You can't use our history to get out of this."

"What history? I can barely remember. I was only twelve." He turned his back, knowing she would take the bait.

Miss Parker lowered her gun just an inch, her grip less firm.

"You know I begged Daddy not to send me away…"

"Oh yeah, because it would have been so much more fun to watch me pacing in my cage for fifteen years."

"Jarod—"

"It's okay Miss Parker. We had our different paths to follow. You killed people, I simulated killing people. You had a life, friends, romance… I imagined it."

"Those things aren't all they're cracked up to be you know. My experiences caused me nothing but pain. Life's complicated, Jarod. Trust me you were better off where you were."

Jarod whirled round, his eyes flashing sudden anger, "But I was never given the chance to decide for myself! And I would choose the complication and the pain just for the chance to really live! To feel…"

He dropped to the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped in defeat. "And now," he gestured to the gun, "You'll take me back, I'll return to my cage and never know those things. Do you reckon they'd let me out when I'm 80 years old and too frail to do anything?"

Parker looked at the Pretender, shocked to see the despair in those eyes which usually were filled with cheeky mirth. Without deciding to, she stepped over to him and placed a hand on his back.

"I'm sorry Jarod." She mumbled, knowing it wouldn't change anything.

"What's it like?" Jarod asked, despair in his voice, his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him.

"What's what like?"

"You know, _it_." He said it the way a child would, one who has been taught that sex is a dirty word.

With a blow of understanding she realised the implications of it. She knew he had been captive all his life, denied the things that normal people have, but for some bizarre reason this particular lack had never entered her mind. It was amazing to think that a man of thirty years had never touched a woman…

"It's not all that great really," she tried to sound causal, comforting, "Just a lot of noise and mess."

"That's not what I've heard."

"Well, movies always romanticize it, make it like this wondrous, earth-moving thing but…" she paused for a moment realising she was actually sharing some pretty private things with him, but after a moment she just surrendered to the honesty that needed to flow. "That's not been my experience. I mean I've never had it… feel that good."

He turned his eyes to hers then, confused, almost upset like she had just told him there is no Santa Claus.

"Why?"

Miss Parker knew exactly why. Sex for her had always felt like a mistake. The men she had taken into her bed she had never let into her heart, never laughed with or cried with… it was mechanical, soulless. She had long since stopped believing that 'making love' even existed. It was a shame that Jarod would never get to decide for himself.

"This is stupid Jarod. Come on, we have to get going." She started to stand but his hand on her gun-arm stopped her.

"Please…" his voice was softer than she'd ever heard it, "Miss Parker, please… kill me?"

She gasped at the desperation in his voice as her went on, certainty in his eyes.

"I can't go back into a cell and spend the rest of my life imagining what I missed. I've been on the outside for six months, had a taste of what there really is to living! You can't take that away from me now and expect me to stay sane! You'll have to kill me!"

Parker's stomach twisted at the thought. This was Jarod, her friend and enemy, the boy who never grew up. "I can't, Jarod, you know that."

"Because they want me alive."

"No. Because I just can't." Came her soft admission. Jarod looked up into her eyes, searching for the truth of her words.

"But you've killed people before. It's easy. Just a bullet, right here," he tapped his forehead, "And you can tell your father that it was self-defence. I grabbed something heavy and ran at you…"

Miss Parker found herself shocked at how the imaginary scenario came so readily to his mind. But then, of course, that what Pretenders did: make possibilities come to life.

"No, Jarod," her voice was firmer this time, like a parent refusing something for a child's own good. "I won't do it, and you shouldn't want me to. I mean, suicide, really? I didn't think it was in your nature to give up so easily. You gave us the run-around pretty hard these few months."

"You'd give up too, if you were given just a snatch of freedom only to have it ripped away. To always wonder what might have been, what it would all feel like."

He turned his face away abruptly, and she realised he was trying to hold on to some pride as the tears began to fall. She could step away, let him have his privacy and then, when he was done, resume her unpleasant duty of hauling him back to the Centre.

Instead, she holstered her gun, sunk onto the bed next to him and placed a hand on his chin, bringing his tear-streaked fact back towards hers. He still could not meet her eyes, so she pulled his face into her shoulder, hugging him to herself.

It was a simple human gesture of comfort, but she had not been prepared for her own emotions to come into play. His quiet sobs brought tears to her eyes too. She began to grieve with him for the life he would not have. Unbidden, images of him out there in the world leaped into her mind.

Jarod, driving a convertible with the top down along a coastal road, the wind ruffling his hair, loving every minute. Jarod, at a kitchen counter somewhere cooking dinner while she sat at a dining table sipping wine and watching. Jarod, taking a leap from a high diving board into a pool and coming up laughing and splashing her…

 _Hang on! When did I start to appear in this made-up life of his?_ The thought shocked her, and she began to draw away from him, but his arms around her clung on just a little tighter. His head was under her chin and the smell of his hair was earthy and comforting. She gave into the urge to run her hands thorough it, feeling the silky texture, as though he'd just washed it.

Jarod turned his head slightly to the side, his ear pressing against her chest. Parker wondered how much her heart-rate had increased and took a deep breath to try and slow it.

"Did you—" he whispered, then stopped, as though he had thought better of it.

"What?"

"I saw… I imagined my life in the world, just simple experiences, and I imagined sharing them with… someone."

Parker could not stop her heart from racing again now. Had he seen the same happy scenes in his mind's eye? No, that was impossible!

"I just wondered if you ever thought of what your life might have been without the Centre. Maybe you could have been happy."

"I don't think so, Jarod. I'm not really one for happy endings. Can't see myself sitting by a roaring fire with a kid on my knee." She lied smoothly, "It's too…"

"Normal? You don't think someone would have liked to have that with you? A life, a family?"

"Maybe once. But it's too late. For us." She had meant to say, 'for both of us', that both of them were condemned, but the Freudian slip made Jarod look up, his chocolate eyes searching hers, and she knew the other meaning had hit home. The hope in his eyes, even here at the end of his freedom, almost took her breath away.

"It _could_ have been us, couldn't it?" He breathed, "Taking road-trips, having nights in at home, playing around, laughing like idiots…"

Just the way he said it made her certain he had imagined the same scenes as she had. Somehow, they had both seen a glimpse of their shared experiences, like looking through a door into a life that never was. The future denied them.

A tear escaped her eye and chased down her cheek. "I'm sorry, Jarod. That we never—"

His lips touched her cheek, kissing the tear away. "Shh. It was beautiful, if only for a moment."

His mouth dropped to hers, planting to softest of kisses there. Undemanding, sorrowful. A kiss goodbye.

And suddenly it wasn't enough. Her mind flew back to a stolen kiss between children, the tingle of excitement mixed with the thrill of fear at being seen. And now this; a kiss of longing and regret. Were these all they could ever share? It wasn't right.

Moving with need and instinct, her hands came up to frame his face, her lips returned his kiss gently at first, then with more urgency. As though their seconds were numbered, she pressed her mouth to his, branding every sensation into her mind to store away for the future, when she was alone.

Jarod's hands came up too, reaching around her back to pull her in tighter still, and she felt the palms of his hands trembling though her silk shirt. She could feel the thrum of his heart now, racing along with hers as their chests pressed together.

She drew back for breath and in his eyes there was amazement, passion, but also fear. She wondered at it, then remembered his earlier admission. He had never embraced a woman this way, never been further than that innocent kiss years ago.

Instantly she knew that Jarod wouldn't be arriving at the Centre tonight. It was almost as though the decision was out of her hands now. Some stronger force had taken over.

There was nothing she could do about their impossibly dominated lives, about their murky futures at the mercy of the same implacable master, but here, now… there was life to be lived, experience to be shared, need to be fulfilled.

She knew the certainty she felt must show on her face, because Jarod's expression had turned to wonder, the exact same way he'd always looked at her when they were children, as though she were some heavenly creature he could only dream of.

"Miss Parker, I…" his voice was thick with emotion. She brought a delicate finger to his lips.

"You deserve one more special experience, Jarod. And so do I. We can deal with the Centre tomorrow."

Her other hand eased him back to recline on the bedhead, and she knelt beside him whilst she unbuttoned her gauzy blouse. There was no more rush: she moved slowly, sensually, enjoying the sensations that were building. His eyes grew wide as the shirt slipped away, and his breath caught as the lacy bra followed it onto the floor. She could almost laugh at his wide eyes as she removed the rest of her clothes and sat naked before him. He was so… innocent, and yet a man's tension boiled beneath the surface.

She moved to undress him then, her eyes drinking in the smooth planes of his chest, the fine muscled abdomen. His need was obvious as she slipped his khaki pants off him and settled herself above him. She dipped down to embrace him within her.

A groan of exquisite pleasure escaped him, low and throaty, as she began to move, sighing and gasping. As much as this was Jarod's first time, it might as well have been hers, as it was so unlike anything she'd experienced before. She had never felt so ready, so wet and eager in all her life. His hands reached to caress her breasts, run over her shoulders, down her stomach and grip her hips. Every inch of movement made her catch her breath again.

She could feel him straining within her, see the clenching of his muscles, and knew that he would soon reach his climax. Naturally, being so inexperienced he wouldn't have the control to wait, and she so needed to reach that wondrous peak herself, so she sat heavier, pulling him deeper. She slipped her hand down between her legs, her fingers reaching for that point she knew would bring her to fulfilment in just moments.

Her gasps gave way to deep moans as she felt him explode within her, pushing up, filling her utterly and completely. A moment later her caressing fingers made her own pleasure leap and crash like a wave over her. She collapsed down onto his chest, panting.

"Is this… is this what it's really like?!" He choked, out of breath.

"This is what it should be like Jarod," she gasped in reply, "How I've never felt. How I always wanted it."

"Miss Parker, I… I can't describe how much… thank you." He buried his face in her neck again, gasping out soft 'thankyous' over and over as his breathing and heart rate began to slow.

When she awoke later, still snuggled against his chest, she lay in the dark and wondered at the impossible turn this night had taken. Hours ago she faced him with a gun, the anticipation of her father's praise in her mind.

Now her father's face was a spectre, looming just out of sight, waiting to lock Jarod in a lab forever and send her away, far away.

She ran a hand over his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall. He slept peacefully, a miracle in itself considering the desolation he had been though tonight. He had told her to kill him rather than face being caged once more. It had seemed absurd to her at first, but now, having looked at life from his idealistic point of view, imagined the things that could have been, she could honestly see his point of view. Maybe it _was_ better to die than to be denied all those things.

But better still was to live.

At the moment of their kiss, when her core began to heat up and she knew that she needed the experience and the release as much as he did, she had also accepted that the glimpses of that other life were not just idle fantasies, they were how it should have been. How their lives would have worked out had they not been twisted by the Centre.

She closed her eyes and let herself see the images again, and now, after what they had just done, the happy domestic scenes were interspersed with nights of passion. She knew that with Jarod, all her previous experience of mechanical, uneventful sex would be wiped away. He would give her back the sensation of 'making love' she'd missed out on her whole life.

Only now did she realise it was because she loved him. She had always loved him; the little boy who adored her though glass, whose eyes lit up when he saw her, and the man who, in only six short months, lived the kind of life she could only dream of. The life of a man seeing everything for the first time.

The excitement with which he'd embraced each new experience in the world outside had shown her how jaded and cynical she'd become. It was a long time since she had enjoyed anything as much as Jarod did. This was why chasing him had frustrated her so. She was jealous that he took so much delight in these ordinary things when she could not.

Until tonight. Until she imagined doing the ordinary things alongside him, and they were transformed into wonders. Suddenly she knew that she needed his presence in her life to feel that way.

She felt like she was standing at a fork in the road; one path led back to the Centre, to her father and to Jarod's imprisonment. The other led to that simple life together, far away from the chasing and the killing. She pictured that farmhouse kitchen again, the simple contentment on Jarod's face as he stirred a pan, tasting the sauce with a satisfied smile.

They could have that. They didn't have to wait for the backup Daddy had promised to send over in the morning. They could disappear.

There was just one thing she still couldn't explain…

Jarod stirred beside her, stretched and rolled to fit himself snugly to her, skin to skin.

"This feels wonderful," he said, a kind of wistful sadness in his voice which surprised her. "I don't suppose they'd allow me conjugal visits in the Centre would they?"

Of course, he believed that she had gifted him one night of passion so that he might experience this pinnacle of human feeling just once before he was a prisoner again.

"Jarod… I have to ask you something. Before we… when you talked about things which might have been, did you mean… did you see yourself driving? Cooking—"

"Playing in a swimming pool with you?" He finished, awed.

"Oh my god, how is that possible?!" She rolled quickly to face him.

Instead of answering, he pulled her chin down a little so he could look squarely into her eyes. "It's something I've suspected for a while, Miss Parker. The reason they pulled you back here to lead the hunt for me. They knew you were the only one who could ever catch me, because…"

"Because?"

"You can anticipate my moves. You can think like me. You're a Pretender, Miss Parker."

She shook her head intently, sure that he was wrong. But was he ever wrong about anything?

"I can't be, I'm not… I can't do simulations and adapt to all those lives like you could!"

"You could, if you wanted to. You just never have. Your father sent you away when he realised what you are. He's an important man at the Centre, but there are those even higher. They'd have caged you too."

"I thought he sent me away because of you, because he saw us… kiss."

"I think he knew you are a Pretender and that if anyone else found out, given the way we were… with each other, they'd see a perfect breeding experiment. He wouldn't want that for you. He loves you."

Miss Parker, still reeling from the concept, was also amazed to hear Jarod talk of her father as a good man. Of all people, he had the most right to hate him.

"And you think this is why I can imagine our life together just the same as you would?"

He nodded gravely. "Pretenders don't dream idly like normal people do. We have an inherent feel for the probability of things. I think we are more connected than you realise."

"Jarod, this is insane. We spent one night together. One night, and suddenly I'm some freak of nature and we're running away to start a family of Pretenders?"

"I didn't say we were running away together, Miss Parker..."

His expression froze, caught in realization. No, he hadn't said that had he? That was only in her mind… he let go the breath he was holding, a fresh look of awe on his face. There was that boy behind the glass again, marvelling at her.

"You thought about betraying the Centre! I'd always thought they had you pretty well indoctrinated, that you'd never see another way…"

"You know I saw it, Jarod. You saw the same."

"Wow. You mean, you would run with me? Have that life?" The hope in his voice was back, wiping away the dejected surrender of yesterday.

"I… no… I don't know! All this business of me being a Pretender, I can't accept it, it's not me! And even if we did run away, they'd never stop chasing us."

"No, they wouldn't, but we could try and stay one step ahead. There's plenty of good experiences to be had out there, Miss Parker. Together. And who knows, maybe one day we'd convince your father to let us be. As much as he wants me back, I think he loves you more."

Parker wished she had as much faith in him. She had wondered so many times if he would eventually have sacrificed her to get to Jarod. This speculation was all getting too much, too frightening.

"Jarod, it's… a sweet notion, really, but—"

"It's your notion, Miss Parker. You brought it up, remember? I figured last night was just… a dying man's last meal, so to speak."

"It was!" Even she could hear the emptiness in that claim, but she ploughed on. "I just wanted to give you that experience, that's all. No one should have to be a virgin forever. But it will be morning soon. There will be back-up coming." She was backpedalling, and she knew it. She expected him to call her on it, he who knew her so well, but unexpectedly he just shrugged.

"Well, if there's so little time left, I would like to thank you properly for opening my eyes to one more experience."

He nibbled on her shoulder, his hand tracing a tingling line down her ribcage. With gentle but insistent pressure, he pushed her flat and propped himself on an elbow beside her. His hand dipped lower, finding the flat plain of her abdomen and dropping into the downy hair below. His fingers teased, searched.

"Jarod, I..." she began to protest, since it was so obviously a distraction from the matter at hand, but her arguments were suddenly groundless as she felt her folds parted and his fingers touched the moistness within.

Suddenly she was lost in sensation as he slipped a finger inside her, pressing upwards, exploring her. Between gasps, she opened her eyes to look as his face, and saw that his eyes were focused on her expression, gauging the reaction to every move he made with his long fingers. Abstractly Miss Parker marvelled that, with his supernatural adaptability to all situations, he could quite quickly become an expert at this. All her previous sexual encounters had been so joyless, and had never ventured beyond the basic act itself. Here was a man who would take delight in learning to pleasure her, over and above his own desires and needs.

He was sliding his fingers in and out of her now, varying his speed and pressure. She arched her back and moaned in response, discovering that she enjoyed it more when he used first two and then three fingers to fill her.

Her eyes locked tightly closed, she could only feel when he moved from his position beside her. She wondered if, as she suddenly needed, he would position his manhood to fill her completely. However, the new warmth and wetness at her entrance told her he had decided to explore another level to which no man had ever taken her.

Jarod's breath was warm as he blew softly on the hard nub above her entrance. His tongue seared her entrance, circling and dipping. He used both his hands to open her fully, then dived in as far as his tongue could reach, licking upwards and around the sides of her passage.

Her hips were bucking spasmodically now, and her groans were coming loud and low.

"Jarod," she choked out, "I need… please, I want you!"

His mouth against her skin, she felt his chuckle.

"I think you can stand a little more," he said, probing inside with his fingers again whilst he turned his tongue to her clitoris, flicking and sucking. The combination was too much.

Miss Parker felt the beginnings of her climax, but tried hard to suppress it, her breath coming in gasps. She only felt keenly that she needed him to be inside her when she let go!

"Please!" She screamed.

Swiftly, Jarod rose and plunged himself into her, sliding effortlessly all the way to the hilt. His fingers returned to her nub, pressing and rubbing as he ground himself inside her, working his way quickly to his own climax.

By the time he had stroked in and out another few times, she could feel her core spasm again and again, as though clinging on to his manhood for all she was worth. Jarod cried out his release, low and throaty, shoulders shuddering.

He lay on top of her, gasping but not moving to release himself from inside her.

"We- could have it all, you know…" he panted out. "There's no need for this to end."

"Jarod... I don't know how we can possibly—"

"Well, for one thing they are coming in a helicopter I can fly."

It was so strange, lying in a sweaty tangle, the warmth of passion still coursing through her, to hear him casually plotting their escape from a bunch of armed and highly trained operatives, as cheerfully as if he were talking about going on a merry-go-round.

She realised that this is how he was able to continually thwart her efforts to catch him with such downright cheek. Really, who has time to get away, but also leave tantalising clues, jokes, and silly booby-traps all about the 'life' he left behind as a clergy man or a race-car driver or a circus clown?

It was because the never-ending chase of his life was more than just getting away, it was taking pleasure in getting away with it. Come to think of it, Jarod would make the perfect criminal if his impeccable moral code would allow it. Maybe he would be a modern-day Robin Hood, taking the ill-gotten fortunes from evil people and giving it to the deserving.

She imagined him in a green, tight costume astride a pale horse and suppressed a giggle. It did not go unnoticed.

"Something funny?"

"Well, I guess, the looks on their faces when we hijack their chopper…."

His smile turned quickly to a frozen mask of astonishment. For once, she had managed to surprise him.

"Miss Parker—"

She stopped his question with a kiss.

"It's time for a new Simulation, Jarod. This one is Bonnie and Clyde. Are you running with me?"

The look on his face was one of simple adoration.

"Anywhere."

*** THE END ***


End file.
